Abstract
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a widespread method used to deal with an assorted variety of psychological disorders. Associated procedures and techniques are strongly dependent and limited by the use of traditional paper-based artefacts (e.g., questionnaires, thought registries) which pose issues and difficulties for both patients and therapists. As technology is introduced within this process, a large set of opportunities emerges to enhance therapy for all the actors. This chapter presents a comprehensive framework that targets these issues and takes these opportunities by defining new paths that support individual (on the two active therapy roles) and cooperative endeavours spanning through the course of the various activities that therapy requires. The authors detail the tools that compose the framework, illustrating their functionalities and features with a variety of scenarios that validate its significant contribution to the overall therapeutic process.
TopBackground
This section will present concepts and related work. First it briefly describes Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), in its individual and group (GCBT) forms. Then it discusses the opportunities for the introduction of technology in the traditional CBT process and afterwards the opportunities to improve and extend CBT processes through technology. It debates on existing technology, first addressing the systems specifically developed to support psychotherapy and then enlarging the scope to other tools that can be adapted or offer inspiration to a full CBT support.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Group Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: A particular arrangement of CBT where sessions are held in groups and where people share their difficulties with others who may have similar problems.
Pervasive Computing: An approach to software and human-computer interaction in particular that considers the development of computer applications and the associated information dissemination and interaction in a ubiquitously way, deeply integrated into everyday objects and activities.
Computer Supported Collaborative Work: A field of study that addresses “how collaborative activities and their coordination can be supported by means of computer systems” (Grudin, 1988).
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: Encloses a set of psychotherapy practices that address the resolution of people’s problems, by changing people’s attitudes and behaviour, and focusing on thoughts, images, beliefs and attitudes that we hold and how this relates to the way we behave, as a way of dealing with emotional problems. CBT involves individual work and sessions, usually with a therapist and a patient (individual therapy).
Mobile Applications Design: A domain of knowledge that addresses the creation of mobile applications, which are adequate to the diversity of resources that mobile devices possess and most notably to the myriad of context characteristics that can be faced during its usage.
Mobile Applications: Computer applications that execute in mobile devices (e.g. mobile phones and PDAs) and that use adequately the diverse set of resources available on those devices.
Multimodal Interfaces: User interfaces that include multiple modes of interaction, such as input and output audio/video modalities (e.g. speech and image recognition and synthesis) or haptic interaction (e.g. gestures), besides the most common visual (e.g., display) and motor ones (e.g. mouse, keyboard), and combines them complementarily or in alternative.